[B] Rendered into modern English from Brydge’s Peerage, vol. v, C.H. A few years later and Edmund, Duke of York, was imprisoned here; and Queen Joan of Navarre, widow of the Duke of Bretagne, and second wife of Henry IV, was also confined here for a period of more than eight long years. The former appears to have been “an uncommon grateful prisoner,” for he is said to have left his gaoler a legacy of £20! In Pevensey town in the sixteenth century lived a jester (professional or otherwise we have not succeeded in discovering), Andrew Borde, a monk, said to be the original “Merry Andrew,” and the author of two ancient works, still known to the few, called the _Boke of Knowledge_ and _The Wise Men of Gotham_. His witticisms were apparently not seldom directed against the municipal authorities of Pevensey. On one occasion he makes the Mayor assert, with much access of dignity, “Though Mayor of Pevensey I am yet but a man,” and accuses a Pevensey jury of having brought in a verdict of manslaughter against a yeoman charged with stealing a pair of leather breeches! Another detailed account of this latter event says that when the man had been brought in guilty of stealing the breeches by the jury, and they were informed that the theft was a capital offence, they were astounded and unwilling to hang the man and so adjourned the Court, dispatching a messenger hot haste to Thomas Willard, Esq., of Eastbourne, the town clerk, to beg his opinion whether it would be possible to reverse the present verdict and bring in a fresh one. It happened that Lord Wilmington, with the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, was at dinner with Mr Willard when the messenger arrived, and upon Mr Willard telling these two gentlemen the nature of the message he had received, the Chief Baron (as a joke, one must suppose) said, “Instruct them to reverse the present verdict and bring in another of manslaughter.” To this advice Lord Wilmington also assented, and Mr Willard advised accordingly, with the humorous result we have already mentioned. Whilst yet another Mayor, who received an important letter by special messenger whilst engaged in the occupation of mending the thatch on his pig’s stye, on attempting to read the communication upside down, “was so long a-doing it” that the messenger at last ventured to hint respectfully that if he would attempt to read his letter as did ordinary folk he would make speedier progress towards mastering the contents. The reply must have been crushing, “Hold your tongue, sir!” exclaimed his worship with asperity, “understand that while I’m Mayor of Pevensey I hold a letter which end up I choose.” Andrew Borde’s fame as a mirth provoker was so widespread that we find King Edward VI himself came to visit him. The room which by tradition is pointed out as that in which the youthful Sovereign had the interview with his father’s old physician is nowadays somewhat of a show place, and the house itself is a quaint one.